AdRo
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but what if all who behold you see naught but a monster? Given the chance, can this conception change? Sometimes, it just takes one person to reach out...and help. ·Radiant Dawn

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Princess Twilight Sparkle, the keeper of the magic of friendship, has begun to bless groups and pairs of ponies with eternal happiness, gratitude, and love. And who could possibly want eternal happiness more than former-queen, Chrysalis? ·Rina

With the population of the changeling race crippled by their expulsion from Canterlot, and their queen powerless to salvage it on her own, Chrysalis requires outside help from Equestria to get them back on their feet. But reaching out to Princess Celestia proves troublesome, as she cannot risk returning to Canterlot, and the one pony outside the city with a direct line to her is also the least willing to trust her. The salvation of her kingdom may rely on her making amends... and perhaps making friends as well.

For now I have only one thing that buggers me: Chrysalis is too fast opening to ponies. I mean, I feel she have more hate for ponies in heart. I believe that it would be longer way for her to beg ponies or Celestia for help. But hey, it's your vision of her. I hope it'll get featured.

You get extra points for an appropriate and well-used Python reference. Chrysalis does seem to be opening a bit quickly, but it's a small issue. Unless Lightening_Zing manages to unionize the other readers and things spiral out of control.

Chrysalis is too fast opening to ponies. I mean, I feel she have more hate for ponies in heart. I believe that it would be longer way for her to beg ponies or Celestia for help

Pretty much what he said. She goes from an evil queen that dreamed of taking control and enslaving everypony to what most people did with Nightmare Moon; trying to make a villain that wanted to enslave/kill ponies look like the victim; which makes this perfect feature material. Not to mention that Chrysalis seems a little OOC -- I say little because we don't know much about her, so there's room to speculate here.

You'd think that Fluttershy would freak out more -- she did with Princess Luna. But maybe she learned from that experience? And Twilight was, well, really out there. Whatever, it was completely within reason for her to have that reaction.

The story also seems to move a bit fast, but I'm not really bothered by that. I dislike it when fics drag on and on.

You already know how I feel about Chrysalis plan and her motives - as well as how changelings work - so there's no point in repeating it. As Lightening_Zing said,

it's your vision of her.

But enough about that -- you make this seem plausible in the canon of the show with believable characterization of the cast, and that's always important in my book. I look forward to more. I really like where you're going with this. Have I mentioned that before?

Wow. I come back from my date, and I have a small flood of favorites, seventeen likes (scratch that, NINEteen), and some pretty good praise and helpful input in the comments. I'm calling this a successful maiden voyage into the world of published fics on this site.

Personally I don't see her as a villian or evil Queen. I see her more as ruler of dying nation who had to deal with all stuff happening to her subjects. Well intentioned extermist or anti-villian, your pick. I just don't like so easy labeling of characters.

And in my personal headcanon, changelings plan for ponies was similiar to machines plan for humanity in Matrix, so it gets even less black and more in gray shades of morality.

Anyway, I just ended reading all chapter. Twilight Sparkle reaction was a bit extreme, but I was excepting something like that. She's not very stable with her emotions and reactions. I wonder about reactions of rest Mane 6. Anyway, good read, upvoted, and waiting for more.

Really looking forward to more. I like the more sympathic depiction of chrysalis, myself not being so much a fan of changelings as totally evil.

Within canon it seems suprisingly open whats made of the changelings, we have little except what chrysalis says, and from that a surising range of things can be derived.

One one hoof, desperately seeking food for her starving subjets (to the point of being willing to face down a godess), with maybe a bit of a "drunk on power" moment after overpowering celestia (she seems as suprised as everypony else that she won that).

On the other hoof, she can be seen an somepony who would gleefully destroy a peacefull, almost utopian nation for personal power. (from her coments about gaining power, and interpreting changelings as more hivemind/subversient and/or fundamentally evil)

But as i said, i prefer versions closer to the first, both because i like the changelings and would love to see them redeemed in some fashion, and the idea of an "always evil" race just seems to clash with the hopefull, love&tolerate theme of MlP:FiM. There seems to simply be few true evils in that world, even discord seemed more an embodiment of madness than malice.

Wow. Twilight's a bitch lol. I mean, damn. I hate her more than Eric Cartman, and THAT'S saying something. But it's not a 'you like to hate him' feeling. It's more like a 'Can Leatherface have you over for dinner?' type feeling.

>>13317681331768 You know, I JUST watched that movie about a week ago. Though I wouldn't go that far, really. I actually really REALLY like Twilight, but I had a reason for writing her like this, and I'm not going to have her be like this for the entire run of the story. That's a serious injustice to her character.

As >>13268041326804 said, I'd like to see more of is Chrysalis' opinions on the ponies as a species. For example:

So this Fluttershy was a caretaker of local fauna. Having seen her relative skill with handling the songbirds for the wedding, this did not come as a surprise. Chrysalis chuckled to herself. She'd like to have seen the feeble little pegasus go up against some of the Everfree's larger denizens.

Just small things like the way she refers to them to help enforce that she doesn't like them, but is asking them for help out of pure necessity. You could then subtly change the language to show some character development further along the line.

I can't help but feel the conversations and the internal dialogue sections are very... divided. There is only one going at a time, and this leads to conversations becoming information unloads, where characters spill everything, even the stuff the other characters don't need to know, to inform the reader. I think blending them together a bit more would help in making conversations more natural. For example:

Original:

Rarity turned toward her friend, eyebrow raised. “Are you certain it was because of Angel? I noticed some hesitation when you answered me.”

Edited:

Rarity turned toward her friend, relieved that she had finally arrived, but something caused her to pause for a moment. Was that hesitation? “Are you certain it was because of Angel?” she asked, an eyebrow sliding skyward.

>>13516101351610>>13517041351704 Thanks for the tips. I'll see what I can do about tweaking the story to incorporate that. Might still be a little while, since I still have classes to go to and all, but I WILL look through what I have and see where it can be edited, if not today, then probably tomorrow.

[size=6]That may or may not involve using the examples you gave me[/size] I mean what?

Nice. Hope twilight comes around a bit, i mean shes wasting time when the changelings are in very dire straits, and its not like asking for help (and putting the whole thing in celestias hooves, were it as a matter of state arguably belongs) would mean that chrysalis gets of scot free.

Rainbow might be the hardest to convince, but shes not gonna let sompony die. Probably. Although... ive tried to finish this sentence five times now. No, i dont know how Rainbows gonna react.

Although a thought occurs. Chrysalis does not strictly speaking need twilights help to send a message to celestia. She needs Spikes. And his sympathy she has. If twilight gets too irrational.. hmmm. Of course hijacking a mode of communication meant for twilight isnt necessarily make celestia more sympathic.

This is why you should never confront Twilight with anything. She overreacts and becomes mental. (She could turn Hades into a quivering crying mess, with her antics.) I feel so sorry for Chrysalis. (Go Pinkie! That's the spirit.) A party, hopefully, will help things.

Actualy, you raise a good point there. Chrysalis actualy needs spike's help, since only he can send and recieve letters directly to the princess. However, I am pretty sure that the "communication lines" that Spike was given can be "overided" if Twilight is not in her own mind. (Remeber when Twilight thought she would be tardy with her friendship reports with Celestia? Yeah, Twilight, you owe Spike big time for making him both worry and send a letter to the Princess that day.)

However, if the communication lines were to be over-ridden, Spike should send his own letter first saying that "Twilight's gone insane again," but not to worry about it because "somepony else needs to talk to you, and please don't 'sick' the Royal Guards on her." Then Chrysalis can write her sob letter about the whole scenario.

>>14159061415906 That does sound like a good idea, but A. I don't know how well that would go over at this point in the story, considering their continued survival is Chrysalis' reason to keep going with this, and B. I love the headcanon of the changelings being connected by a hive mind, but I'd have to tweak the story to account for it because I never alluded to such a thing. I easily COULD, and... actually, now I'm CONSIDERING it... but I have a little bit of a plan for how the ending will go, and it doesn't really work if they're all dead.

Oh, but goddammit, you're making me want to try it... I guess we'll just see how happy I am with the story progression. If the hive-mind thing comes into play at all, it'd be a good point for chapter seven. And I would probably have to tweak the prologue (and a chapter or two) to establish the connection's existence.

Holy shit, you may have just helped the story. You've earned a cookie and a pat on the back, and if I do decide to implement the hive-mind headcanon into the story, credit for the idea. I mean, I did think of it when I first started, but you got me thinking about how it could be used to work in the story. Hell, I just came up with something brilliant regarding it while I was typing this comment, so... yeah, once I pump out chapter seven and weave that little plot point into the story (minus the total extinction thing [for now...?]), I'm putting up a blog post or author's note thanking you for the idea.

Or I could just say "thanks for the idea" right here, but that's not appreciative enough. Because it really is an awesome idea, and I have an awesome idea for how to use your awesome idea. I'd tell you WHAT that idea is, but in the immortal words of River Song, "Spoilers!"

When I read this I was surprised. And I think I squealed a bit. The Hive Mind Theory has been in my head since the original Airing of "A Canterlot Wedding" and is my headcanon, how all the soldiers just KNEW they had to stop those six, not having seen the situation when Chryssy unmasked herself.

this is nice.....and yet it annoys me...I was going to write a story with a somewhat similar premise...different location, but as the trigger for the wedding attack and this just makes me think of that.....will still do it but......that being said continue, you are doing a nice job-you don't need to forgive her Twilight, bu accept that she needs help for her people

I might be wrong, but that response sounds to me like Celestia isn't coming no help the changelings and more like a I'm coming for Chrysalis don't let her hide and/or scape...

While it looks like Twilight screwed up, I don't think anypony has any right to place blame on her for not writing sooner. She certainly could have handled it better, and blowing up on her friends is mostly, if not completely, on her, but the recent tragedy and fact that Chrysalis won over the mane six as friends can easily make one forget that the fact is that the Changelings are a foreign aggressive force. It's true they acted in desperation, but they attacked unprovoked, caused untold property damage, harmed, and maybe even killed, both civilians and guards. Even if you were to ignore the aggravating details involved, it would have been stupidly reckless to listen to the enemy, accept their word and ask Celestia for help. Twilight might have erred, but considering the situation it was better for the Equestrians to err in the side of caution, had the Changelings been acting it could have open the doors for a second invasion...

Also you have to wonder, no matter how much it makes her suffer, silencing her link to her subjects and not contacting them in 2 days is a incredibly stupid move. While it's true it hurt her to have constantly listen their cries, and that she needed concentration to plan and to try to win Twilight over, not bothering to check for two whole days was asking for trouble, especially considering a leader is supposed to reassure her subjects during hard times. Not only are they likely dead, they probably died confused, scared and alone. The worst part is I doubt any current world leader would have acted differently, and that makes it all the more believable...

While I believe you took Twilight a little to far, all the characters are completely in character, the way you wrote it it's completely believable, thought this scenario is a little to dark for the show target audience, so I don't think we will actually see something similar on the hub. A great fic so far.

Now, that's not really a fair assessment. Killing would both serve as a detriment to their overall goal, and fly in the face of Chrysalis's actions up to that point. She'd had ample opportunity to kill Twilight and the real Cadence, but just locked them up, instead. Cadence's health would suggest she even gave her food and water.

>had the Changelings been acting it could have open the doors for a second invasion

It's entirely possible to give aid while not rolling out the red carpet for an invasion. They already know of the changelings' abilities, so as long as they had security measures in place, there's no more danger of them invading that way than any other.

>not bothering to check for two whole days was asking for trouble

Given her proclivity towards not planning ahead, thinking things through or using common sense, you have to wonder how she became queen in the first place. I mean, her first attempt at invading would have gone off without a hitch if she'd tried, I don't know, maybe not being a bitch. All in all, I think it's safe to put a modest share of the blame for this mess on her atrocious acting.

>>14987841498784 I don't have a schedule for this. It's mostly just a free-time thing. I mean, I already started the next one (if you count two sentences as "starting"), but I've got my riffs to work on as well.

Basically, no promises, but I don't think it should be more than a few weeks. Probably.